Hell and Back Again
2011 Directed by Danfung Dennis
Synopsis
What does it mean to lead men in war? What does it mean to come home? Hell and Back Again is a cinematically revolutionary film that asks and answers these questions with a power and intimacy no previous film about the conflict in Afghanistan has been able to achieve. It is a masterpiece in the cinema of war.
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I good in-depth look into a soilders perspective of life before and after the war. Good doc from 2011.
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Taking us from the frightening spectacle of the U.S. war on the Taliban in Afghanistan into the resultant fallout in the life of an individual soldier attempting to reintegrate back into society Danfung Dennis’s HELL AND BACK AGAIN delivers an unnervingly human portrait of the multifaceted effects of trauma on a person, and extends the clichéd adage ‘war is hell’ to ‘war is enduring hell’.
Read my full World Cinema Showcase 2012 review here (the second of two capsule reviews on the page).
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A good documentary but I wish it went a little deeper, seems to be scratching the surface.....on a separate note this film feels like the documentary version of The Hurt Locker, not saying that's a bad thing.
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Hell and Back Again is a war film that should be shown to teenagers rather than something like Battle: Los Angeles. This is a true account of the war in Afghanistan, showing real-life footage of the war taken from the director himself.
We follow around Nathan Harris, a twenty-year old Marine sergeant, who has returned from his six month tour in Afghanistan in a wheelchair. Shortly before the end of his deployment, he is shot by a sniper, with the bullet going through his right hip, punctured his hip socket, before finally collapsing to break his leg. It's a messy scenario, and Harris will need a full year of rehab before returning to Afghanistan.
In the meantime, Harris is trying…
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Hell and Back Again (2011)
Danfung Dennis
B+Impressionistic war doc specializing in displacement & temporal confusion. Reminded me of MARTHA MARCY.
[ported from twitter]
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For every film made about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan there’s another one about troops coming home broken inside. To the best of my knowledge this is the first time a documentary has tried to be both of these things in equal measure. The film tells the story of Sergeant Nathan Harris, a man who was shot and wounded during his tour of duty in Afghanistan. What makes the film interesting is that throughout its duration it cuts between footage filmed during Harris’ tour of duty and footage filmed after the tour when he’s injured and trying to readjust to society. This gives the film a very cinematic and constructed feel, something more like a fiction film than a…
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A stirring documentary that looks at the long hard road that many ex-marines have to walk when assimilating back into civilian life. It follows the plight of Nathan Harris, who after being severely wounded in battle, must plunge head first into a new battle at home.
It has one of the most stirring opening montages I have ever seen in a documentary. It only lasts about 6 seconds, but it brilliantly sets up the rest of the film. Sadly, the film doesn't live up to the promise of the opening, but is still an important look at the modern veteran.
The filmmakers use sound to great effect, layering the sounds of combat over the minutiae of every day life. Showing… -
Whats the difference between the American-Walmart-rat race and Afghanistan?
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War documentaries need to prove that they are somehow different from the dozens of others before it. Hell and Back Again brings a different kind of editing to the war documentary and because that is all, it isn't worth really watching.